My GP has told me that 80% of their appointments don't need a GP appointment.

[Hiptothisjive]

So I get that there are always people that need reassurance but this number shocked me. Basically a lot of people are visiting their GP for reasons they don't need to and taking up a lot of GP time.

It's great some of the prescriptions that can be given via a pharmacy now, but surely there needs to be a re-addressing of when to visit a doctor?

YABU - to expect people to know better than go to their GP when they don't need to
YANBU - people should go to the doctor whenever they want to no matter what the issue

I’ve got a good friend who’s a GP and so often feels frustrated that the people coming to see her often need to improve diet, exercise etc. I do get her point, not that I went to the doctor but I had some plantar fasciitis and knee trouble that resolved when I lost a stone.

It's every five years, and you're supposed to be contacted about it.

NHS Health Check - NHS https://share.google/ZiaUkyYGgu4Skswnq

Because you PAY to see your dentist, you PAY for glasses at the optician, and you may not have noticed but NHS dentists are now like hen's teeth if you'll excuse the pun and most people can't even get a check-up at all anyway.

Only children get free dental check ups and it takes MONTHS and sometimes years to find an NHS dentist.

She should have specialised in something interesting. Gp work will always be boring lifestyle issues and sicknotes. I think some are drawn to it for the easy working hours, no weekends or nights like hospitals but to do all that training and spend days looking at very minor ailments must be terrible.

@Hiptothisjive next time show your GP this and ask them if they were one of these GPs that dismissed this lady as one of the 80%

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly0428jjpeo.amp

I was dismissed so many times when I felt lump in my tummy. In both the Uk and an EU country. I was even told it was poo which left me feeling well if am pooping regularly but still have a lump of poo surely that's not normal. I would wear 2 night max pads during periods, changed frequently and still soak through. Was anxious every time I stood up during my periods.
Finally went to a doc in my country (one of the top 4 poorest countries in the world) and was diagnosed with fibroids. I eventually had a private laparoscopic embolisation in London. The imaging before that showed over 20 fibroid. The surgeon said he stopped counting at some point. And mine is not the worst case scenario as per the story above.

How are we supposed to triage ourselves?

Because they can then make more money from prescription fees 🙃

Exactly, it's what the job is.

Especially as the family doctor aspect has disappeared.

Am sorry you had to leave. Can't imagine how difficult that is because I am convinced most GPs go into it wanting to help (not for weekends as some allege here. Tut tut). And I definitely don't agree with GP bashing (or teacher bashing). I think most of us don't appreciate how hard public services personnel work under very difficult circumstances, underfunded services, increasing needs, and increasingly frazzled clients.
I still feel the GP saying this is not helpful. I rarely go to GP. I look at me and am a black immigrant woman who hasn't had the best of experience and have read of unequal treatment of black women in healthcare. So I often don't expect the kind of support or experience I would love (although to be fair most of my experience with my GPs have been positive!)
My solution? I currently self medicate for insomnia, tinea pityriasis and occasionally haemorrhoids (Beyond of the shelf suppositories to a stronger, subscription one). Am about to start a stronger ferrous sulfate and researching how to addess my perimenopause as my GP was disinterested and just threw the ball back in my court. I shouldn't have to self medicate on any of these. But I do because I have learnt that the system is unlikely to support me. Am sure GPs like the one op went to would be relieved. But most GPs would probably be alarmed and some might even prefer to see me rather than reduce "unnecessary " appointments through thousands of self medicating people.
It's all very difficult

@blueandwhiteporcelainmy kid caught scarlet fever at nursery - I thought it wasn’t really around much too, just something you saw in old movies, but it’s not rare. Some viruses e.g. chickenpox, covid, rsv can make you more susceptible.

It could be seen as 'boring' - on the other hand, I'd say the pastoral care aspect of it would be what might be enjoyable? And there's space for GPs to do an enormous amount of good just by listening; it seems a slightly odd complaint that people are bringing them the wrong sort of problems.

My gp insists I go in when I could go to the pharmacy. Covid, flu jabs, hrt I could get a prescription for 12 months but they insist a blood pressure check every 3 months. I've never had a problem with blood pressure. It's because the Gp wants paying for doing them not the pharmacy. So it's a 2 way street.

We are in our late 60s and had never come across scarlet fever ourselves - we just heard our parents say “Little Fred Blogs got it…”

I know of a child, who got it in the last year!

There used to be two wonderful walk in clinics near me in South Manchester. I used to take my father regularly for minor injuries which they were able to patch up if it wasn’t an urgent case for A and E.
if they reopened some of these it surely would take the pressure off the Drs and A and E.

No, not any more. We have an ageing population, and some people may have 4 or 5 co-morbid chronic conditions. Hospitals are putting more and more management of their patients, back onto GPs without asking them, if they have the capacity to do it.

The GP in my family complains that he may have a surgery with too many complex patients, who can’t be dealt with properly in the standard 10 minute slot!

For instance, DH has had two stents put in. The cardiac unit told him on discharge, if he had any problems to go to his GP. Does a GP necessarily have the training to know all the things that can wrong after a stent? DH usually feels really ill for several weeks after. Our GPs don’t know why. We know in Poland, they keep patients in hospital for a week after a stent. Here, it’s a few hours!

I recently had an appointment to have my coil changed. When I got there they told me it had recently changed and you now only need to get them changed every 8 years rather than 5. The GP and nurse in my appointment told me they’d had lots of appointments like this that they have to do together that they didn’t need to have. Not sure why they couldn’t have told me and everyone else this information over the phone rather than wasting all our time.

I live in Scotland, and the First Minister is planning to set up a walk-in, 24/7 GP service. This is going to start in a few areas initially, but the intention is to roll them out Scotland-wide.

Of course he has not provided any details on how they plan to staff this service, given that they can’t fill the existing GP vacancies in Scotland - it is complete pie-in-the-sky.

I'd like to know how. I have to get through receptionist and nurse telephone triage before I can get a phonecall where they might decide they need to see me.

I have a friend who was dismissed as a time waster by GP and A&E multiple times before finally being admitted for 5 weeks with a serious bone infection and sepsis. She was very nearly sent home that time too but thanks to junior Dr staying past the end of shift and being thorough she got admitted. I doubt she would have survived if not.

Maybe they can take on the English GPs that can't find a job?

I think there’s been a rise over the last decade in lots of viruses, not just ones where routine vaccination has slipped. Teacher and pupil absence due to illness have also increased since pre-pandemic. With a number of children having health and behavioural issues following covid infections and risk increasing with each reinfection, schools and nurseries are becoming ever bigger germ pits.

Agree. I certainly haven’t got this impression from my GP surgery (I’m on the patient participation group), and I bet this is also very highly dependent on the area and type of practice. A practice in a relatively wealthy area with lots of younger people on roll may well not be seeing a lot of serious illnesses; but in a poorer area and/of with a lot of children and older people I bet it’s very very different.

Noted thanks I won’t call my GP next time.

I thought I'd go and look for some stats and data, as this thread is pretty anecdote heavy.

https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/workforce/one-fifth-of-gp-appointments-avoidable-finds-nhs-england-audit/

This was from 2018, and suggest the ratio of 'unnecessary' appointments was rather 20% than 80%.

'A fifth of GP appointments are potentially avoidable, according to an audit funded by NHS England.
The audit tool, developed by the Primary Care Foundation, has been used by more than a thousand GPs in nearly 350 practices since it was first launched in 2015.
The data collected as of May 2018, revealed that 20.5% of GP appointments could be avoided, with the most common reason being that another clinician in the practice could have seen the patient.
But this is lower than the 27% figure NHS England quoted in the GP Forward View after a very small early pilot of the audit took place in 2015.

Henry Clay, director of the Primary Care Foundation, told Pulse that the latest figure reflects a broader range of GP opinion about what is an avoidable appointment.
He said: ‘What the clinicians do is at the end of each consultation, for the period they’re using the tool, they categorise the appointment broadly into whether it was potentially avoidable or not.
‘But particularly for those are potentially avoidable, how it might have been dealt with differently. Clearly there’s a degree of subjectivity in doing that.’

More up to date article - 2023 - says 'up to 16%' are 'potentially avoidable'.

https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/workload/one-in-six-gp-appointments-potentially-avoidable-says-nhs-england/

https://www.health.org.uk/reports-and-analysis/briefings/rethinking-access-to-general-practice-it-s-not-all-about-supply

'The 2023 GP patient survey – an annual survey sent to more than 2 million adults across England – finds that just over half (54.4%) reported a good overall experience of making an appointment, the lowest level in the 6 years the question has been asked. The percentage of people who got an appointment at a time they wanted (49.8%) is falling, as is the percentage who found it easy to get through to their practice by phone (49.8%).'

-a very interesting survey/study/article.

' Rising GP workload, and the corresponding decline in permanent FTE GPs, is a fundamental problem. Improving access will be difficult unless the overall resourcing of general practice – including funding, as well as the total number and range of staff – matches patient need. '